"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world."
Concord has about six thousand people, and is also famous for its literary history and associations. It is near the tranquil Concord River and the junction of the little Assabet and Sudbury Rivers, a pleasant tree-embowered quiet place of rural residence. Peter Bulkley, an English rector, who was oppressed by Archbishop Laud, fled to New England, and in 1636 buying of the Indians their domain of Musketaquid, founded the town and church of Concord, thus naming it because of its peaceful acquisition. In the nineteenth century it became noted as the home of some of the greatest men of letters in America. Near Concord bridge is an ancient gambrel-roofed house built for Parson William Emerson in 1765, and from its windows he watched the fight. This is the "Old Manse" in which Ralph Waldo Emerson, himself once a clergyman, and descended from seven generations of clergymen, was born in 1803. Emerson was known as the "Sage of Concord," or, as Fredrika Bremer the novelist, who visited him there, described him, the "Sphinx in Concord," and was the head of the modern school of transcendental philosophy. He died in 1882. Nathaniel Hawthorne lived for awhile in the "Old Manse" at Concord, and there wrote his "Mosses from an Old Manse." The house was afterwards burnt. Hawthorne died in 1864. Both Emerson and Hawthorne are buried in the attractive little Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Emerson's grave being marked by a large block of pink quartz. Henry D. Thoreau, the eccentric but profound scholar and naturalist, in 1845 built himself a hut on the shores of the sequestered Walden Pond near Concord, leading the life of a recluse, raising a few vegetables, and now and then, to get a little money, doing some work as carpenter or surveyor. He was profoundly skilled in Oriental and classic literature, and was an ardent naturalist, delighting in making long pedestrian excursions to the forests, lakes and ocean shores of New England. He never voted, nor paid a tax, nor entered a church for worship, and of himself he said, "I am as unfit for any practical purpose as gossamer is for ship-timber." Emerson tells us that "Thoreau dedicated his genius with such entire love to the fields, hills and waters of his native town, that he made them known and interesting to all; he grew to be revered and admired by his townsmen, who had at first known him only as an oddity." Dying in 1862, he, too, is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. In the Orchard House in Concord lived the Alcotts, of whom Louisa M. Alcott, author of _Little Women_, is so widely known. Adjacent is the building used by the "Concord School of Philosophy," established in 1879 by A. Bronson Alcott. They also rest in the little Cemetery. Thus is Concord famed, and it has well been said of this historic old place that "it is dangerous to turn a corner suddenly for fear of running over some first-class saint, philosopher or sage."